> Whereas we think of the market, for instance, as a mechanism of
> rationing ("A shortage of water supply? Raise the price!
> Unemployment? Lower the wage!") in the system of production for
> profits, not for human needs, Hayek thinks of the market as a
> mechanism of discovery of human needs & desires we cannot know
> otherwise. For us the market is a question of social relations; for
> Hayek, it is a matter of epistemology.
> Yoshie
In addition to H's epistemological argument that free market is more
than economic exchange system, call it delicate information storage
system, he relies upon analogy between non-human species adaptation
to their environment & what he considers natural harmony brought
about by the market. His notion of 'spontaneous order' is one of
few attempts to identify metaphysics sufficiently uncomfortable for
liberals that it usually remains inert & unargued (for Smith,
invisible hand was shorthand for optimistic deism: God really controls
random market events). Michael Hoover
